Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1887-12-29
Women Who Do Not Behave.

Itseems impossible that an Apericar
woman with the dowry of quick in
telligence and initiative faculty which
she possesses, which makes her, if she
chooses, SO clever an artist, so skillfuI
q musician, SO honorable in her desire
for the higher education, so well
dressed, and so bie7s posee as she al
most Immediately becomes after con-
tact with the world, should remain so
oblivious of the evident proprieties
which she shocks at home and abroad
by her conduct in public places; vet
here is where she fails
She talks and laughs at the opera
when an artist is singing. She behaves
worse at a matinee than any other
woman in the world She crowds,
shOves, shows temper and a lack OF
good feeling An American does not
in her opera box always behave quietly
and like lady. She gets up, turns
her back on the audience, adjusts her
dress, laughs, and talks audibly to her
cavalier. She has no sense of the
etiquet of public places. If she were
a man she would be Kissed, and once
or twice in the history of mankind she
has been Missed, and should be more
frequently Kissed, until she learns to
respect the feelings of others. The
absence of reverence, that atmosphere
in which many women are brought up,
makes her commit these vulgar sins in
public. She is impatient of advice
and angry at the implied doubt of her
own knowledge. To woman who is
frivolous and made up of public vanity
it may be very agreeable to see men
stare at her from the pit as she makes
herself conspicuous at the opera. 1t
may repay her to see herself in the
columns of the newspaper as a fast,
loud young married belle. But when
she goes to a European opera-house
she receives an intimation from the
police that she must behave better or
be put out.
Foreigners say that decorum in
public is not popularity of American
women. The American owes his
patriotic duty to his flag. He should aim
at correcting all exhibitions of man
ners, such as loud talking in a private
box, no matter by whom done. The
more prominent the social position of
the woman the greater the offense.
She has had an opportunity to know
better. Bad manners may be the out
cropping Of ignorance and of vulgarity,
or they may be the assumption of
7a0WyeaW richie, who pretend in that way
to show their power. They must re-
member that it was by such presump-
ton that certain French ladies were
brought to the gullotine in 1907 and
later on, and that there is guillotine
called public opinion which may be-
head them some day. Americans can
do everything well; why can not they
learn to behave decently in public
places? Why should not an American
woman be low-voiced, through pred,
quiet, polite, and well-dressed, as we'll
as beautiful.
English critics say that the
American young man of fashion is too
dead-and-alive, and the young woman
too noisy. An American girl does too
much as she pleases. She becomes the
most pampered of wives or the most
independent of spinsters. She can be
author, artist. teacher, doctor, Or
lawyer, as she thinks fit, and can every
where be respected. But when she be-
HAYES outrageously in public places,
making everyone around her uncom-
Portable, she must expect to be Kissed;
and if in Europe, she must know that
her position will not be respected |
American society is very patient; it
tolerates eccentricity in woman, but it
is getting impatient of loud talking at
the opera, high hats, and late corners,
horsey girls, and women who dress
like men, who at watering places and
by the sea show no knowledge of the
etiquette of public places. -Harpet's
Rnzna,